'Japan' on Serious Eats

Last week, I featured the sweetly inane Japanese advertisement for the Licca-chanPizza-La employee doll (think Pizza Hut Barbie). Today, I have the pleasure of following up with another work of Pizza-La genius. More

Pizza-La is the highest-grossing pizza chain in Japan, with franchises located in 34 of the country's 47 prefectures. Their slogan? "All the taste and toppings you want on a pizza, straight from our oven to your door!" More

At a convenience store In Japan, you've got a window full of rice balls in flavors ranging from pickled plum to spicy pollack roe, skewered beef guts or fish cakes simmered in broth, or—a relative newcomer to the snacking scene—Chinese mandou-style buns, commonly called simply man in Japan. The usual suspects are there—pork, cabbage, mushroom—but this time I was interested in the single neon-orange specimen with the intriguing name pizza-man. This, I thought to myself, has the potential to stagger me with its genius. More

Slice was video-less this Saturday, and really, the choice of video should have been obvious! Domino's had just launched their "Moon Branch Project", the Domino's Japan way of celebrating their 25th anniversary. The website is complete with a video announcement from Domino's Japan CEO Scott Oelkers and it has all kinds of mock ups by engineers and cost projections. For a promotional site, it's pretty over the top. Check out the video that you should have seen on Saturday. More

The blog Eataku reports that Japanese burger chain MOS Burger will add new regional items to its menu on August 24. Two of them are ... pizza but not pizza. Both these "Pizza Dogs" will be available only in Okinawa. From left, the Island Vegetable Pizza Dog topped with tomato and corn and the Island Vegetable Pizza Dog with goya. According to Eataku, goya is "a bitter gourd vegetable that's common on the Southern island of Okinawa."... More

Pizza Hut Japan's crazy new creation is called the Cheese Harmony pizza. According to Japan Probe: It's got pieces of Camembert cheese thrown on top of normal cheese. There is also some fried cheese on the pizza. The crust is stuffed with a mixture of Parmesan, mozzarella, and cheddar cheese. Related Top 10 Crazy Asian Pizza Crusts Japanese Stovetop Pizza Oven Big in Japan: The Pizza Hut Double Roll Pizza Pizapai Kudasai (A long-ago visit to a Neapolitan pizzeria in Japan)... More

I somehow missed this awesome pizza-related robotics news last week, but it looks like the Japanese have taken inspiration from pizza-makers and the way they control their pizza peels in designing a new type of robot "hand": "An Italian chef dextrously manipulates a pizza in an oven using a tool called a pizza peel," says Makoto Kaneko, the team's leader at Osaka University. A pizza peel consists of little more than a flat blade attached to the end of a long pole, but it gives the chef a surprising degree of control over the pizza. Kaneko's team has designed... More

Video: Spider pizza. [Japan Probe via Tokyo Mango and Boing Boing] The Secret to Making a Pizza Date Romantic: 1) Make sure your sweetheart's in the mood for pizza and 2) Have the place make it heart-shaped. [Examiner] Top 400 Chains: Pizza Hut, Domino's, Papa John's, Little Caesar's, and Sbarro are the top 5. Click through for some others. [R&I] Pizza Hut: The chain lays off more than 200 in Chicago—mostly immigrants and Latinos. [PMQ] Peter Reinhart: The renown baker likes his new Forno Bravo Primavera "portable" wood-burning oven. [PR's Blog] N.C.: "Sir Pizza—it's crack for rednecks!" Cool logo... More

Why do the Japanese always get all the cool stuff? Awesome vending machines, monkey waiters, and now the Nintendo Wii Demae (Catering) Channel, which allows gamers to order pizza and other food with a flick of the wrist. According to the blog Destructoid, the channel works in tandem with an existing food-delivery service. You still have to pay cash money at the door—the Demae Channel doesn't take Nintendo Points. Related Top 10 Crazy Asian Pizzas Mobile Street Food in Tokyo, Japan... More

My idea of a pizza is rather basic: a flat round of dough covered in tomato sauce, dotted with mozzarella, and topped with a few basil leaves. But in the world of East Asian pizza chain pies, that would be some major weak-sauce pizza. More

I'm obsessing over this Japanese stovetop pizza oven that looks like it would replicate the ideal baking conditions of a traditional Italian pizza oven. I say "looks like" because, honestly, could this thing really work? I have my doubts. Not to mention that the pies that come out look incredibly small.... More

Domino's Pizza #1066, blogged to Slice from the Flickr photostream of Nemo's great uncle As long as the heatwave continues at Slice HQ, we'll keep bringing you snow-themed photos of the day. This one is cool for two reasons: the obvious one, and for the fact that it offers a glimpse into pizza-delivery vehicles in Japan. Doitashimashite!... More

A winner in the Slice Pizza Haiku Contest, that is. We asked readers last week to compose a haiku and submit it for the chance to win one of three fabulous prizes. (Or maybe not so fabulous, depending on your penchant for Japanese snack food.) We had 18 entries (we expected more; come on, people!), so it was a tough decision, but here are the winners, as selected by yours truly.... Third Prize a.k.a. Second Runner-Up a.k.a. Bronze a.k.a. Show flour on marble blooms into flames crisping dough bubbling cheese cools  N.H. Liao I thought Ms. Liao's... More

Want to get your hands on a box of Pizza Pretz? Enter the Slice Pizza Haiku contest and you just might. Let's not get into what does and doesn't define haiku and just say that what Slice is looking for is what most of us learned as childrenthe ol' unrhymed 5-7-5 syllable structurebut with a twist. It must be pizza themed. Send your pizza-themed haiku to adam (at) sliceny (dot) com with the words "Pizza Haiku" in the subject line. The best, as judged by me, will win three (3) boxes of Pizza Pretz and a 1.25-inch pin that... More

Not so long ago, this reporter found himself at Yagura Market, grabbing a quick lunch of sansai udon to go. (There's not much in the way of good pizza in Midtown.) While waiting for order number hyaku ju ni to come up, I figured I'd pick up a box of that old gaijin favorite, Pocky, manufactured by the Glico company. Though I was familiar with the sweeter versions of the chocolate- and what-have-you covered pretzel sticks, I was not aware of the company's Pretz line of snacks, which apparently predate Pocky (the latter being Pretz dipped in different confectionary... More

Mr. Feldman's photo of the Italian pizzaman in Stockholm prompted me to dig through my own photo archives for this picture. Taken in Kurashiki-shi, Japan, during my latest visit with a longtime friend who now lives there, it shows Mr. Sekizen Kohara at the prep table in his shop, La Cenetta. Pizza in Japan actually isn't that hard to find (click the Pizza Royalhat image at right for a menu from a Japanese pizzeria). But good pizza is. Sekizen's pie falls squarely in the former camp, and it's what makes his shop popular with Western ex-pats living in the area... More